WILLIAMSBURG, Va., — Republican governors gathered here this weekend gently nudged Mitt Romney to wage a more aggressive campaign, urging the GOP standard bearer to share more about his background and draw a sharper contrast between his vision and that of President Barack Obama.

In a series of interviews, the chief executives said they’d like to hear their presidential nominee rebut Obama’s criticism about Bain Capital, the company Romney formerly led, by explaining what the venture-capital firm did while offering a more forward-leaning recitation of what he’d do in the White House.

The governors all expressed a belief that the still-wheezing economy would ultimately doom Obama, casting the incumbent’s pugnacious campaign to define Romney as an out-of-touch tycoon as the product of a president unable to run on his record.

But as they chatted this weekend between sessions of the summer meeting of the National Governors Association in Virginia’s colonial capital, the Republican leaders said the time was coming for Romney to go on the offensive.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who last month fought back a recall effort, said the GOP nominee could take a lesson from that contest, one in which Democrats similarly launched a relentless series of attacks. Walker urged Romney to respond to Obama’s assault like he did against Democrat Tom Barrett, first portraying the president as desperate, then quickly laying out what his plans are on the economy and spending.

“It’s not something you just chat about amongst reporters on background, I think he needs to personally say it, I think it needs to be in ads,” said Walker, adding that Romney had been solid in his discussion of jobs but “should do a little bit more of that with the budget.”

The Badger State governor, a star now in conservative circles following his second victory in less than two years, recalled a successful event Romney recently held at a Wisconsin small business and said the candidate should dispense with the speeches and be more accessible.

“My advice to the campaign is he should do that all that time,” Walker said. “He should be out on that bus tour. He was comfortable. He was at ease. The small business people ate him up. They loved him. He didn’t just talk to them, photo op and move on, he incorporated that in his comments on the stump later. I’d get rid of that podium. I’d give him a mic and have him walk right out with people because I think he gets a bum rap from people in terms of his perception. I found him to be very comfortable with people and engaged. I’d put him on a bus, and I’d send him all over.”

While Walker said Romney should run a singular campaign on the economy and the budget, Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam suggested the nominee-in-waiting push back against Obama’s Bain-bashing by explaining further about what he did in the business world.

“I would hope that he’ll do more of that,” said Haslam, himself a businessman before turning to politics.

“His job is to break out of that and show, ‘Here’s who I really am,’” Haslam said, adding: “In my mind, he’s got a heck of a story to tell.”

Other GOP governors, however, channeled the increasingly common complaint among conservatives when it comes to Romney, contending that he needed to go beyond mere criticism of Obama and detail his own plans for the presidency.

“I think we’ll start seeing the activity in the campaign accelerate, and it’s going to get very clear to people just exactly who is doing what to whom,” said Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer. “I do believe that he and every one of us ought to be out there extolling his virtues about how successful he has been and beat down all this class warfare. I’m proud to look at someone and see them to be so successful.”

Asked about the pivotal suburban Philadelphia centrist electorate, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett said: “I think they’re hearing enough of who he is, I think it’s now time to hear what he’s going to do.”

“He’s starting to do it,” Corbett added, noting that such a full-throated campaign should begin at the convention.

Many of the Republican governors here hail from the large class of 2010 and cite the improving unemployment picture in their states as an example Romney can cite about the possibilities of GOP leadership. Especially among the contingent of Midwesterners, there’s a yearning for Romney to be aggressive about comparing their approach to their Democratic counterparts.

Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, who previously held the same office in the ’80s and ’90s, said he told Romney’s campaign on a recent Romney trip to the Hawkeye State to hold up Illinois as an island around a handful of Republican-led states.

“He just needs to say Obama’s doing for America what his fellow Democrats are doing for Illinois,” said Branstad. “And what Romney wants to do for America is what the Republican governors are doing in their states.”

Branstad said Romney’s campaign was “very responsive” to his suggestion and that the candidate incorporated some of the language at a stop last month in Dubuque.

The Republicans were heartened that Romney had taken to the airwaves last night to hit back at Obama for his Bain attacks, suggesting that’s the sort of hard-charging posture the campaign needs to adopt.

Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, the Republican Governors Association chairman and host governor here in this hub of American history, said there “absolutely” needs to be push back on the Bain attacks.

“It’s happening with us surrogates, and I think in a lot of quarters, it’s happening with the governor,” McDonnell said, adding: “The other side raises issues and charges. You have to be able to answer to them and then move to what’s really important. This is small ball, and it’s petty and it’s divisive and it’s not what people care about.”

If Republicans want Romney to hit back as good as he gets, at least one Democratic governor questioned whether either side would ultimately get much bang for all the bucks they’re spending on negative ads.

“At a certain point, people fit all this information into their framework,” said Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper. “And I think it’s going to stop having an impact. My gut feeling is this might be the year that we finally anesthetize people sufficiently so that more attack ads don’t do good, and the people are going to have to be clever and come up with some new insights on what their candidate stands for … on both sides.”

Added Hickenlooper: “When I talk to voters, they say they just tune it out.”